I found the reason for this problem. The kernel initialises the framebuffer /dev/fb0 device with the vesa driver (vga16fb) before it starts loading the nvidia driver. You can see this in the attached syslog file.
** Attachment added: "syslog" http://launchpadlibrarian.net/51976046/syslog -- [Karmic] X server starts randomly in failsafe when starting from cold boot https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/459639 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg-server in ubuntu. _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
